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Four Green Fields proposal offered Tampa the most rent for Curtis Hixon Park restaurant site

 
Four Green Fields offered the city of Tampa the most rent for a space next to Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park, according to a city spreadsheet of the seven proposals submitted to put a restaurant in an existing city building overlooking the park. This rendering shows the proposed restaurant.
Four Green Fields offered the city of Tampa the most rent for a space next to Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park, according to a city spreadsheet of the seven proposals submitted to put a restaurant in an existing city building overlooking the park. This rendering shows the proposed restaurant.
Published July 7, 2017

TAMPA — City Hall received seven proposals in response to its invitation to put a restaurant next to Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park, and the company it picked — Irish pub Four Green Fields — offered the most money.

"I'm happy with the selection we got at Curtis Hixon," said Mayor Bob Buckhorn, who had indicated before this week's announcement that price would probably drive the city's choice. "They were creative. Some financially were better for the city than others. ... There were some legitimate, credible and serious folks who bid."

A city spread sheet breaking down the terms of each proposal shows Four Green Fields offered to pay rent of $89,880 a year — or $35 a square foot — for a city-owned building on the south side of the park that is now used for public rest rooms and Parks Department offices.

The two next highest bids — from both Richard Gonzmart's Columbia Food Services and Nicol Winkler's Polycreative — offered to pay annual rent of $51,360, or $20 a square foot. After that, the per-square-foot rent offers ranged from $10 to $18 a foot.

Four Green Fields owner Colin Breen also was one of three bidders who did not propose that the city waive or abate some part of the rent. The others were David Burton, whose experience includes Tampa Pizza, SoFresh and Holy Hog Barbecue, and a partnership between Bill Rain and Mark Newkirk, who had proposed creating a restaurant similar to the old Newk's Lighthouse Cafe that used to be near Amalie Arena.

The other five bids proposed breaks on the rent totalling $12,840 to $138,672.

It is no secret that Buckhorn is a big fan of Four Green Fields, where he once held an election-night party, in a race he lost. But the mayor said that in the end Breen offered the city the best return and required no money from taxpayers to make the space ready.

"The return to us was significantly higher than the second-best proposal," Buckhorn said. "It was a fairly easy decision, and the numbers spoke for themselves."

Four Green Fields' restaurant at the park will include, like the original pub, a thatched roof, plus a raw bar with indoor and outdoor seating. Construction on $680,000 in renovations is expected to start in mid-August and take about four months to complete.

After the city announced this week that Four Green Fields had been awarded the contract, there was some back-and-forth on social media about whether the city made the best choice.

"It's not the right fit," said Roberto Torres, owner of the Blind Tiger Cafe. He had been part of Burton's proposal for a melt shop with sandwiches, burgers, milk shakes and popsicles — plus, Torres said, a coffee and juice bar.

Torres said he was speaking only for himself and not for Burton, but noted that the city's request for proposals mentioned integrating the restaurant into the redevelopment of downtown and its surrounding neighborhood. He noted that Tampa already has four Irish pubs in or near downtown.

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Torres also said that if the city is pushing health and fitness at the park and along the Riverwalk, another pub "doesn't fit what the mission of the park is." Families with kids need a place to get a drink, he said — and what about those yoga classes?

"I don't know how many of those ladies are going to say, 'Let's go drink a Guinness now that I'm relaxed,' " he said.

Meanwhile, City Hall also announced Thursday that it awarded the contract for putting a restaurant near the Tampa Convention Center to South Florida restaurateur Ron Evans of Smuggler's Enterprises Inc. — the only company to respond to a city request for proposals for that location.

Evans plans to create another of the Harpoon Harry's Crab Houses that his company already has in Punta Gorda and Pigeon Forge, Tenn., where he and his business partners have vacation homes.

City officials say Evans proposes to spend $3.6 million to convert a vacant 10,000-square-foot space at the northwest corner of Franklin Street and Channelside Drive — formerly the site of the Tampa Bay History Center — into a restaurant. That's on par with the $4 million the company spent to open its Harpoon Harry's in Tennessee, Evans said. The plan is to open in six to eight months.

The Tampa restaurant is planned to 400 to 500 seats, with a sushi bar, a main bar, and an area themed around a restored 1926 Chevy truck finished with chestnut. An upstairs mezzanine level would feature roll-up doors that would give diners an open-air view over Franklin Street.

Evans said working with city economic development officials Bob McDonaugh and Rob Rosner made him "feel very comfortable that Tampa would be a good fit." It felt good enough, he said, that he and his wife plan to return to Tampa this month, lease a downtown apartment, and move to within walking distance of their newest project.

"We're there for the long term," he said.

Richard Danielson can be reached at rdanielson@tampabay.com or (813) 226-3403. Follow @Danielson_Times.